~ Seasonal fragrance and flavour from my country kitchens in England and France....celebrating local seasonal produce with traditional feasts and festivals, culinary notes, reviews, recipes and musings from home and abroad....whilst preparing family food with flair ~

Fabulous Fish for Good Friday

~ Marmite Ecossaise ~

Luxury Scottish Seafood Stew

Today is Good Friday, a day traditionally associated with fish, and I must admit that I usually cook one of my fish pies for our Good Friday lunch or dinner, but this year I have developed a new recipe – my take on a classic French fish and seafood stew, Marmite Dieppoise which originates from Normandy in Northern France. And, this recipe was a dream to make, as I had the most amazing fresh fish delivered recently from John at Delish Fish in Peterhead in Scotland; my fresh fishy package contained an amazing array of fish and seafood – monkfish, lemon sole, cod, sea bass, halibut, scallops and some dried salt cod too. I have many more recipes planned to make with my fresh fish, but just for Good Friday I have developed this luxury fish stew, a concoction of delicious fish and seafood with wine, cream, curry and fennel bulb……my take on this classic French stew……perfect for a Good Friday lunch or dinner, serve it with crusty bread and a super chilled white wine, a luxurious recipe to mark the beginning of the end of Lent.

Marmite Ecossaise

I used monkfish, cod, lemon sole, scallops, mussels and king prawns in this recipe, but any white fish can be used, such as hake, coley, haddock or ling. I decided to serve my mussels out of their shells, but again, if you want a more tactile meal then serve the mussels in their shells in this stew…..you can also cook this fish stew with cider instead of white wine, but I wanted a dry crispy flavour for this dish, and so I used a Muscadet………

Muscadet in sunshine

I bet a splash if Pastis would be a great option in this stew too, although the fennel bulb and fennel seeds add that wonderful aniseed flavour, which is a perfect foil to the fish and seafood. You can prepare the vegetable and wine base beforehand, as long as no fish or seafood is added, and then just gently reheat it and continue as posted in the recipe below. All that remains is for me to wish you all a very Happy Easter, I will be sharing some more Easter cake recipes over the weekend, as well as another fishy dish over the weekend. Karen.

LA MARMITE DIEPPOISE is a fish dish invented in the 1960's by the lady who owned the Restaurant of the same name.
When she retired, she sold the restaurant to her head chef and gave him the rights to her recipe, although not the secret of the ingredients. However, he had watched carefully over the years and knew exactly what went into it!
This is my take on that classic stew/soup, but using prime fresh Scottish fish and seafood.

Ingredients

50g salted butter

1 leek, cleaned and thinly sliced into thin rings

1 fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced thinly

1 onion, peeled and sliced thinly

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon Madras curry powder

100ml dry white wine

2 tomatoes, finely diced

25g plain flour

600ml fish stock

450g fresh mussels

150g fresh monkfish fillets, cut into small chunks

250g fresh cod fillets, cut into strips

150g lemon sole fillets, cut into strips

12 large fresh scallops and corals

16 large fresh king prawns, peeled

75ml crème fraîche

Juice of 1 lemon

cayenne pepper or paprika

salt and pepper, to season

Note

LA MARMITE DIEPPOISE is a fish dish invented in the 1960's by the lady who owned the Restaurant of the same name.

When she retired, she sold the restaurant to her head chef and gave him the rights to her recipe, although not the secret of the ingredients. However, he had watched carefully over the years and knew exactly what went into it!

This is my take on that classic stew/soup, but using prime fresh Scottish fish and seafood.

Directions

Step 1

Heat the butter in a large saucepan, and then add the chopped leeks, chopped fennel bulb, diced onion, fennel seeds and curry powder. Sauté over a low to medium heat for 10 minutes until the vegetables are soft.

Step 2

Add 50ml of the wine along with the chopped tomatoes, heat for 2 to 3 minutes before adding the flour, then gradually add the fish stock mixing in to the vegetable sauce until smooth. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Step 3

Meanwhile, steam the mussels in the remaining 50ml white wine for 3 to 4 minutes or until the shells open. Drain the mussels in a colander, catching the cooking liquor into a bowl before straining through a sieve and adding the wine mussel cooking liquor to the vegetable and wine sauce. Shell the mussels and set to one side; you can keep a few in their shells for decoration if you like.

Step 4

Place all the fish pieces into a grill pan and dot with butter, then grill for 4 to 5 minutes under hot grill; add the scallops for the last 2 minutes, turning them half way through the cooking time.

Step 5

Add the lemon juice to the stew base and then add the cream; stir well, add the king prawns, before heating up the stew and cooking for a further 2 minutes over a medium heat until the prawns are just cooked, then add the cooked mussels. Season to taste and then arrange the fish and scallops in pre-heated bowls, and spoon the stew with the mussels and prawns over the cooked fish. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper or paprika and serve with crusty bread and a chilled white wine.

All my favourite things in there. Must be a Scottish thing, seafood love certanly runs in my family. I made a salmon and prawn fish pie for Good Friday, but not blogging it, really rather basic compared to your gorgeous stew.

Karen it’s perfect! It looks so delicious . I feel like I’ve been running a clam processing plant today, my husband brought back 7KG from his dig, in the end I made a very simple clam soup, and am planning two more’ clammy’ meals over the weekend! As well as ll the other seafood. I do love eating in France!

I have just been drooling over your spider crab lunch, it looked fabulous and I agree that the shells always look so pretty afterwards too…..I look forward to your clammy recipes over the weekend! Karen

Karen, I’m once again terribly behind in my blog reading since I was traveling most of last week, but I wanted to let you know I’m drooling over this seafood stew – it looks marvelous and so many beautiful colors…

Meet Karen

Bienvenue! I'm Karen; it’s lovely to see you here. I share my time between beautiful North Yorkshire and SW France. I am a freelance writer and recipe developer with a passion for art, travel, books, photography, seasonal food and especially cheese! Please do get in contact with me if you have any questions about my work or commissioning me. Read More…